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Interesting attempt to uncover an underground genre

Proibidao C.V is a compilation of underground music recorded by artists who wish to remain anoymous and passed through the slums of Rio by DJ's, the music is raw, brutal and makes gangster rap look like it's for pussy cats. Proibidao means prohibited in Portuguese and that's because it is, the music is banned from main broadcasting due to it's violent lyrical content and worship of the drug gangs that run riot in the favelas and indeed promote this music at illegal dances and raves.

A heavy bass line is combined with chanting and songs are rarely mixed at all on the album. Different songs are linked to different gangs and promote hatred between rival gangs as well as boasting about the merits of a particular gang. C.V. relates to Comando Vermelho, a criminal organisation that practically ran Rio in the 90s but does not have quite the authority it used to today.

The album is dark, raw and aggressive with machine gun noises pretty common throughout albums, the lyrics are not only pretty graphically violent but they are also sang in a very aggressive way which makes them sound threatening. Despite this, they do have a relatively enjoyable and tuneful sound to them sometimes, perhaps more down to the wonderful sounding Brazilian Portuguese language than the singers having a nice side to them!

The first time I heard this, I thought to myself ''What a horrible album!'' I've listened to it a few more times and I suppose it does have a certain charm to it and as prohibited things are fairly appealing, it's nice to get an insight into this underground music world.

It's not completely talentless either, the songs do have rythm. Perhaps the good news is that no gang members make any money from this album as Sublime Frequencies do their usual trick of compiling music without paying the initial artists (not difficult as they wish to remain anonymous), it's only for the truly curious though and this album is still not worth the price despite beign a bit cheaper than many other Sublime Frequencies releases.